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Was the Earth formed ‘in a day’?

Was the Earth formed ‘in a day’?
By Jack Kinsella

According to the Bible, in the beginning, the earth was without form and void. According to Holy Writ, God created the earth in a day. On the third day, He separated the waters and the dry land, and brought forth grass, ‘herb yielding seed’, fruit trees, etc.

Among Bible believers, the only issue of any dispute is the length of a ‘day’. Is it a standard, 24 hour day? Or is it a thousand years, as Psalms 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8 certainly seem to indicate? But as to the creation of the earth by a sovereign act of God, there is no dispute.

Within the scientific community, there is a well-meaning effort to understand the universe apart from the existence of God.

Science generally views the universe as a cosmic accident. The existence of the earth’s atmosphere, water, etc., and the evolution of mankind from a primordial soup is simply a happy coincidence.

Following this logic, science has developed the Big Bang Theory, the Reverse Big Bang Theory, the theory the universe is expanding, the theory the universe is contracting, quantum physics, quantum mechanics, evolution, punctuated evolution, ‘sudden appearance’ and dozens of other conflicting ‘theories’ but through it all, secular science has a faith in itself that, if directed toward God, truly could move mountains.

According to most secular science models, the earth was at one time a hot, molten mass that slowly cooled down over millions of years. It wasn’t created in a day, or even in a thousand years, science insists.

So strong is the faith of secular science in itself that when presented with contradictory evidence it is simply ignored.

Robert Gentry of Knoxville, Tennessee, does amazing research on radio-polonium halos in granite rock. Polonium is a rare element that is radioactive; it breaks down or decays like uranium. But polonium only lasts a few minutes.

As it breaks down, it sends off little particles that fly a certain distance. An analogy would be a hand-grenade exploding under water that produces a sphere of fragments in the water that only lasts a fraction of a second before it collapses.

Different elements have fragments that fly different distances, each radioactive element has a particular “signature” (how big a circle it can make in the rock as it decays like a more powerful hand grenade would produce a bigger sphere in the water).

Radio-active polonium, when it decays in a solid rock, makes a perfect sphere as it decays because all its fragments fly about the same distance from the center.

If it decays in solid rock, the circle is preserved. But if it decays in a hot molten rock, the circle disappears. All over the world radio-polonium halos exist in granite, indicating the earth was never a hot, molten mass.

The half-life of the polonium halo of just a few seconds also argues strongly in favor of an abrupt creation of the earth, so there is little scientific discussion about what the polonium halo might actually mean to all the contradictory theories out there.

Gentry’s research was published in many major science magazines until someone realized that it was proving the big bang theory to be a big dud.

The censorship of his valuable material by mainstream science magazines is incredible but predictable. Evolution is a very carefully protected state religion in this humanist world today.

Scientific discoveries that lend themselves to the argument that the universe was created tend to get little or no coverage.

I wasn’t surprised to find a report in the Seattle Post Intelligencer that didn’t make a big splash on the wire services.

University of Washington astrophysicist Tom Quinn works on NASA’s astrobiology project. That’s a relatively new NASA effort aimed at understanding how planets evolve and, in the case of earth, give rise to life.

While conventional science believes that giant planets like Jupiter take more than a million years to form, Quinn says it may happen in as little as a few hundred years.

“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8) (A few hundred years is just about right, according to the Genesis model)

The standard model of planetary evolution in the universe assumes that these giant gas planets are rare and take at least a million years to form as they orbit around their star. The planets form by collecting a star’s gas and dust through gravitational accretion.

Quinn, along with team leader Lucio Mayer at the University of Zurich and others, plugged astronomical observations and the existing body of knowledge on planetary formation into a sophisticated, computerized mathematical model simulating the “fluid dynamics” of protoplanetary evolution.

What they found surprised them. “We have this prejudice that planet formation has to take a long time, but now it looks like if the gas giant planet doesn’t form relatively quickly it won’t form at all,” Quinn said.

If planet formation goes too slowly, he said, the gas and dust burns off and does not accumulate.

Giant gas planets like Jupiter form moons, and some of their moons, such as Jupiter’s Europa, have water.

“These terrestrial planets like Earth will form as dry planets,” Quinn said. “You need those gas giants in the outer solar system to fling in the volatile materials if you’re going to get water on Earth-like planets.”

The formation of a solar system is a violent event.

As the planets cool, the gas and dust thrown off from larger planets are attracted by gravity to planets like Earth.

It’s too much of a stretch, he said, to argue from their mathematical model of giant planets that more Earth-like planets must also exist.

But it certainly doesn’t hurt the argument, he added.

“It just shows that there’s still a lot of fundamental knowledge about the planets that we don’t understand yet,” Quinn said.

One would have to agree with Dr. Quinn, but the reason that fundamental knowledge eludes him is because he is looking in the wrong place.

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 2:14.

Further, Paul explains, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” (1 Corinthians 3:19)

Science, by its defiant opposition to the things of God, inadvertently prove the validity of the Biblical model by that often unreasoning and unreasonable opposition.

If science, as a social institution and professional community, were truly interested in uncovering the truth, why would Dr. Quinn or Dr. Gentry or any other scientist whose discoveries favor the Creation model get so little funding and attention?

The answer is simple enough. Recognizing evidence pointing the existence of God would mean further research that might inadvertently ‘prove’ the existence of God. As it stands, the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, and nobody can disprove a negative.

As an object of scientific neutrality, then, God must, by default, be assumed to exist unless there is evidence to the contrary. So the ‘evidence’ (in the form of steadily discredited theories) ‘disproving’ God gets all the attention.

Why is that, do you suppose? Well, for one thing, once the existence of God is posited as a scientific reality, a decision is immediately forced.

If there IS a God, then what? Clearly, it becomes choice time, and many would prefer to remain comfortable with their unbelief and therefore unaccountable to a Supreme Judge.

To accept the existence of God as a scientific fact means accepting the indictment of humanity and the acceptance of the existence of eternal consequences for sin.

The world system does not respond well to criticism of its’ operation, since it takes its cue from the prince of the power of the air, whose desire to be worshipped above all else is jealously protected by the secular scientific community.

That is not to say that all scientists are demoniacs or evil in the standard understanding of the term. They are just part of the rest of unregenerate humanity, seeking its own path to redemption, rebelliously denying their need for a Saviour by rebelliously denying any accountablity before a Living God.

Paul, writing under the inspiration of God, knew that the two worldviews would clash. He cautioned Timothy, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:” (2 Timothy 6:20)

Every day we discover something new for which science has to find an alternative explanation apart from God. It is quite a job. It was recently discovered, for example, that dogs are genetically predisposed to need human companionship.

Science is seeking a way to understand how that curious bit of genetic information got written there in the first place. The concept of a living, compassionate, intelligent God programming that information for the express purpose of making our human existence that much more bearable never entered the equation.

Instead, conventional scientific wisdom concludes ancient man inadvertently programmed that information at the genetic level himself through an unprovable tens of thousands of years of dog breeding. Does that make ANY sense at all?

We are living in the last days; a time of explosive knowledge. The prophet Daniel’s vision of the last days, recorded in the Book of Daniel, so terrified him that he demanded an explanation of what it all meant.

The revealing angel told him to “shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” (Daniel 12:4)

When Daniel persisted, the angel rebuked him, saying, “Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” (Daniel 12:9)

The unsealing of the Books of Daniel and Revelation in this generation was accomplished mostly through the agency of scientific discoveries during the last half of the 20th century, beginning with the invention by Bell Labs of the transistor chip in 1948 that made possible the Computer Age.

While science seeks ways to invalidate God, it continues to inadvertently prove His existence, forcing an immediate effort to cover up the evidence lest it raise to many questions.

The words are unsealed, this is the time of the end. Knowledge increases on an exponential level. Moore’s Law dictates the doubling of computer processing speed, and consequently, the capacity for human knowledge, every eighteen months.

Will you trust science, with its ever-changing face and sea of contradictory revelations and theories? Or will you trust Jesus, the Creator of all things, including scientific law (and scientists, whether they believe it now or not)?

Because the Bible is true, and man is by nature a sinner in need of salvation, God Himself stepped out of space and time and took on human form. He lived the sinless life I should have, and paid the penalty for my sin (and yours) at Calvary’s Cross.

Jesus said, ‘it is finished’ Scripture says, translating from the Greek word ‘tetelestai’ meaning ‘paid in full’. By this act, Jesus procured a Pardon with your name on it.

All you need do is ask for it. Trust Jesus for your salvation, surrender to Him, and let Him make the changes in your life He sees fit.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” Ephesians 2:8 says. God extends the grace and grants the gift of saving faith. Just ask.

You needn’t clean up — that’s a myth. Jesus said ‘whosoever will’ may come unto Him. There is an old hymn that says, “Just as I am, without one plea, but that my God has died for me”.

Salvation is not a performance issue, but rather is one of trust. The burden of performance is placed on the same Shoulders that procured the Pardon.

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” (Phillipians 1:6)

All the scientific evidence says we’re running out of time. On this point, science and Scripture agree, although for different reasons.

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Don’t let the sun go down on your sin. There is a way out set before you. Choose life, and live.

Originally Published: November 29, 2002.

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